Astrocyte‐specific protein and neuroglial differentiation. An immunofluorescence study with antibodies to the glial fibrillary acidic protein

Abstract

The topographical features of the neuroglial network in the mature rat CNS and the differentiation of fibrous neuroglia in the neocortex and hippocampus have been studied by immunofluorescence using antibodies to the glial fibrillary acidic (GFA) protein. In the mature brain and spinal cord the distribution and appearance of neuroglia as observed with immunofluorescence were similar to those described by Weigert ('95) using his method for astrocytic fibers. In the developing rat immunofluorescence started to appear on the surface of the neocortex in the first week after birth. In 9‐day‐old rats a continuous external glial membrane had formed by immunofluorescence. Immunofluorescence of the perivascular glial membrane appeared later. Blood vessels completely surrounded by a fluorescent membrane were not observed in the middle cortical layers before the eighteenth day of life. An unexpected finding in the hippocampus was the sudden appearance in the 8‐day‐old rat of a radial system of immunofluorescent fibers crossing the granular layer and extending in the molecular layer. The radial fibers were still present in the adult rat. However, they became widely spaced and thus less prominent than in the immature animal. In fetal rats immunofluorescent fibers first appeared in the medial wall of the lateral ventricles on the eighteenth post‐conceptionaly day. The radial system of glial fibers extending from the ventricles to the surface of the brain and characteristic of this stage of development was not stained by immunofluorescence.